I. Introduction
Government agency and regulation have big influence on super market Coop Mart, especially in Vietnam, where government has great power to impact the business. In the following, we will go into which government departments we should pay attention to, how they could affect the business and what happens in the industry.

II. Government agency and regulation

2.1 Food safety department
Food safety is the department super market pay close attention to. Recent food issues such as H5N1 and “blue ear pig” have made Vietnam food industry started to seriously consider consumer food safety, super market has to take this into account seriously as well. Before that, Vietnamese has a habit going to markets on streets for glossary shopping and buying food, even though the government try to implement food safety into small markets, it seems it does not work well, a lot of meet has not been properly checked by food safety department before they are brought to the markets. They are operated at home or in the market, according to the regulation, they should be operated under inspection of food safety department, however, people usually do it at home despite the fact that they know there might be disease and they usually ignore it. That is the reason no matter how hard the government tries to put a control on it, the disease still cause trouble especially in the markets.

Because of that, consumers now tend to go to do glossary shopping in supermarket more often which they had never done before. They believe that supermarket is more clean, food is way more safe and trustable compared to food from street markets, to avoid bad luck in case buying infected food from street markets, more people go to supermarket, meat distributor such as Vissan has increased their sales recently as they distribute their meat mainly to super market and very clean stores.

Another issue which affects consumer buying behavior is the recent soy sauce issue. According to the news in appendix a2, a lot of soy sauces due to the concentration of soy sauce is too high, twice or three time higher than standard rate, it can significantly damages consumer’s health and after a long time use, it could lead to cancer. After checking samples gathering from street markets, restaurants, and super markets, most of the existing soy sauce is not qualified in safety standards.

As consumers tend to shop more in super market due to food safety, even though according to regulation (in appendix a1), they must guarantee quality and safety of goods, but that’s not enough, the reason soy sauce issue says they must take care and work closely with food safety and health department. However, if super markets want to prove that they care consumer health, they must take extra care of them.

According to the information in appendix a3, the health department did not inform the food safety department in managing food safety issue, they fail in managing good safety, they do not have emergency plan, what they can do is just to report, but the report is seriously lack of information. Apparently, the super market needs to work closely with food safety department and health department and to make it a competitive advantage, even though they might fail in carrying their responsibilities, the super market still needs to work with them not only because of the law issue, it can also build trust from consumer perspective. More than that, the news also says they don’t have a standard to all samples, where to get the samples and examining processes which make the examining brings different results. Probably it’s best for the super market to work much more closely with the agency which examines the super market’s products.

2.2 Department of commerce
As the country has been developing in a fast speed, the department of commerce has very strict regulations with super market to protect people and to serve their need which result in often regulation changes, this requires super market pay attention to announcement from department of commerce. If the super market breaks the regulation, they might face strict charge. Big C would be a very good example, in the case of Big C super market, the government agents could not find the addresses of distributors and importers, according to the regulation, they must be attached on product, or some fruits produced in Vietnam were labeled as produced Korea, Big C was fined for not telling where the goods came from (Viewed on 19 August 2007, Supermarkets break labelling regulations). After this issue, department of commerce probably start to look at products in other super markets because unknown origin products might damage consumer health.

According to ministry of commerce, the number of super market has increased, but most of them do not meet required standards from government of being super market, most of super market’s space is smaller than required, customer service is poor, storage condition is poor, some super markets even are not managed in the right way, for some reason, they are still managed to operate. (Viewed on 19 August 2007, Quy hoạch siêu thị… để hội nhập). Government might now be able to find out super markets that violate those regulations in short time, if they find out later, the super market might face a charge.

2.3 Department of taxation
Due to super market booming in recent years, taxation department has hard time in managing tax issue of super market, taxation department is planning of implementing cash machines in super market. Because of lacking experience in managing tax, this is the way ministry of finance can think of so far. What happening in the super market industry is they keep saying suffering loss, however in reality, the number of super market keeps increasing, that’s why the ministry of finance doubts that they cheat the government a lot of tax, the government decided to track all sales records of super markets. Hence, tracking all sales records also means telling the government their secrets, super markets now worry that their sales records would be exposed to external environment especially to competitors. (Viewed on 19 August 2007, Cơ quan thuế sẽ gác cửa siêu thị).
Not just super market, lot of businesses also cheat the government in tax which results the country loss a lot of money, the fact that they want to set up machines inside super market tells the government is going to take this very seriously. As a matter of fact that government has power to impact business in Vietnam, the super market should work together with the government, make sure the process is smooth but not affect the company’s profit

Even though the number of super market increased, but customers go to super market decreased, partly due to most super market target average incomer people, super market prices are not cheaper compared to shops and stores, not better quality, low customer service. Super market should work closely to food safety department, today poisoned food and disease animals are on the news very often, there are less people going to street markets, people tend to buy meat in super market for safety purpose, if the super market work closely with safety department, they will have updated information regarding to food safety which is critical to buyers considering Vietnamese love to eat meat. Besides, super market should have their eyes on taxation department, there are lots of companies not paying the right amount of tax, not to mention the government can not control tax in all companies, government probably will try to track down company that cheat in tax.

2.4 Department of labor
The super market should pay attention to ministry of labor. A lot of companies in trend do not pay social security benefit for their employees. (Viewed on 19 August 2007, Sẽ “siết” doanh nghiệp “trốn” bảo hiểm xã hội) Employers are supposed to pay social benefit for their employees, however, it cost company a lot especially to company having lots of employees such as super market, so the government probably already have their eyes on the super markets to ensure that all employees are paid to have their benefit. On the other hand, in the past, employees have no idea about social benefit, the social benfit is not significant enough that they care, but now they know that employers are supposed to buy them the benefit, it is their free benefit from employer, if the company tries to avoid it, employee might not sue the company, but government will fine the company. More over, the news say government sure will track down any business not to buy social benefit for employee, it is a warning not just to super market business, but also to all employers.

III. Conclusion
Since the country now is developing, the government in short time might have hard time to control and mange all business factors, issues such as tax; social benefit. However, it is not a very smart move to cheat the government because they will track it down sooner or later, it’s better to follow the regulation. On the other hand, as things are going fast in the country, the regulation might change any time, the super market should pay attention to government regulation, what’s happening in the country as it might affect regulation. Above issues could significantly impact the business if they don’t properly carry them out, all are very important to business, the super market should not just keep close contact to a specific department, instead they should have eyes on all departments to react quickly, for example we focus on paying benefit for employees to avoid troubles from government, food safety is the hot issue we must take into account or we might lose business.